John Dudley: Big Ten realignment should help, not hurt, PSU football

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The Penn State football coaches caravan will not stop in Erie this month.

But as coach Bill O'Brien's second tour of Nittany Lion Nation wound its way through visits to Reading, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and the Lancaster-Harrisburg area last week, you could almost hear the hand-wringing of the PSU faithful from way out here in the boondocks.

They are concerned, unhappy even, about the Big Ten's divisional realignment, which puts Penn State in a loaded new East Division along with Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State starting in 2014.

O'Brien recently went so far as to call it a "murderer's row," although he also made it clear he embraces the accompanying challenge.

He'll need to keep shouting that part of the message to fans fretting that PSU, already staggered by NCAA penalties, now has an even tougher hurdle to clear by bunching together three of the conference's top four teams from last season, record-wise.

No matter how you look at it, the East looks stronger than the West, even with the uncertain strength of Big Ten newcomers Maryland and Rutgers and the presence of usual doormat Indiana.

With Wisconsin in transition under new coach Gary Andersen, Nebraska is the clear favorite in the West. And unless things go more smoothly than expected in Madison, there doesn't appear to be much standing between the Cornhuskers and a berth in the conference championship game two years from now.

History suggests the East and West could be fairly even, given the past ebbs and flows across the conference. But history doesn't have to line up and play the Buckeyes and Wolverines -- or the improving Spartans -- every year.

So you can understand the concern.

But that doesn't change my mind. I think this will only make PSU stronger, especially if it manages to keep O'Brien around.

Think about it like this: One reason the SEC consistently dominates college football is because the competition within the league itself is so strong. Alabama faces half a decade's worth of Big Ten showdowns each fall just to make it through its SEC West schedule against the likes of LSU, Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas and now Texas A&M.

The other side isn't stocked with chumps, either.

Even with both Ohio State and Michigan nationally ranked and Penn State checking in at 8-4, you'd be hard-pressed to make the argument that a Big Ten East, had it existed last season, would have been as tough as the SEC East, with Georgia, South Carolina and Florida finishing a combined 34-6.

And while some say PSU will now have a harder time on the recruiting trail going up against Rutgers and Maryland as conference rivals -- particularly once their coffers begin filling with Big Ten TV money -- I think that could be a benefit, too.

College football is an increasingly homogenized world, and O'Brien gets that. He pointed out recently that he believes within five or 10 years we'll be looking at five or six super conferences. That will further expand traditional recruiting boundaries and force coaches to work harder to sell themselves and their programs.

And I like O'Brien's chances on that front.

Some believe PSU's odds of competing for a national title became a lot longer with the announcement of a new-look Big Ten.